Since the 1930s, the Democrats’ self-advertised stock in trade has been compassion, and no group of Americans more so than blacks have been on the receiving end of the Democrats’ benevolence. With completely, comprehensively disastrous results.

If statist Democrats aren’t stopped, Democratic benevolence promises for the rest of the country a lesser — though still spirit-crippling — version of the compassion that has blighted inner cities and utterly wasted the lives of many poor blacks. Democrats have commenced transforming America into ghetto-light.

That’s not to trivialize the devastation that poor black families and poor black communities have suffered for decades at the hands of liberals and their own black leadership, which has bought into liberalism and controls many big city political machines. (See George Gilder’s classic Wealth and Poverty, or Charles Murray’sLosing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980, for more on liberalism’s abundant contributions to poverty.) Nor does it overstate the case by arguing that ramped-up government meddling, control, and costs would significantly harm middle- and working-class communities across the nation.

Want a hint of what happens to middle- and working-class communities long on the receiving end of Democrats’ big government policies?

Travel the Northeast and the Midwestern rust-bucket states where Democratic governance is the rule rather than the exception, where liberalism has been the governing philosophy for decades. What will you find? More than your share of middle- and working-class communities, usually close to cities, that are ailing economically and were hurting for many years before the 2008 recession.

Communities on the way to ghetto-light don’t make the glossy covers of state promotional brochures. Go to some of these communities yourself — in and around cities like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Newark. The streets are potholed, new construction is minimal (and often partially or fully subsidized by tax dollars), buildings are run-down or vacant, and there’s a noticeable enervation among the locals given that the entrepreneurial spirits and the ambitious young have moved away to seek their fortunes — or just improve their lots — in the Sunbelt.

Conservatives are convinced that Barack Obama and congressional liberals want to remake America in the image of the socialist democracies of Western Europe, with all the nanny state, cradle-to-grave trappings. To give the Democrats their due, that’s probably how they see America’s future: sort of one big hospice, where the nation’s decline and death as an economic and military power is buffered by gobs of government largess and soothed by the kindly touch of bureaucrats.

That’s what’s happening in Europe. The nanny states across the continent are attempting to make the decline and death of Europe easier for the dwindling masses (Europe’s birthrates are alarmingly below replacement rates). But the economic crises facing the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) may well spill over into the rest of Europe. And that doesn’t account for the larger global economic trials the world is facing and which will impact Europe. A resulting economic upheaval may preclude a cushioned landing in history’s dustbin for Europe’s socialist democracies.

But whatever happens to Europe, it’s fair to say America is a different place. The United States isn’t dotted with Swiss cantons. Americans share a common character but aren’t a common race, like the Germans or the French. Americans aren’t a postmodern people drawing to a genteel end. The fading but quaint middlebrow communities in Europe aren’t going to be replicated here. No sidewalk cafes and cute bistros and charming cobblestone streets full of Europe’s bored but contented Mohicans.

A statist-induced fall for America’s middle- and working-class communities is more likely to resemble the seediest commercial strips you can imagine, where a new c-store merits a ribbon cutting. Ambitious Americans will still seek a way out from the suffocation of higher taxes and red tape, but in Mr. Obama’s America, there won’t be anywhere to escape, unless it’s into an underground economy.

Government-run health care and government takeovers of the automotive and financial industries are merely the opening bell in forcing America toward ghetto-light. The president has his sights set on detonating two other huge capitalism- and wealth-busting bombs: immigration reform and cap and trade.

Expect the president and the Democrats to commence humping the compassion angle to make illegals legal shortly. The real point of fast-tracking citizenship for ten million-plus illegals has nothing to do with heart-tugging concern; it has everything to do with votes. Legalized illegals are leftist voters. Nanny state blandishments are the Democrats’ lure. The extra costs to pay off these future voters, of course, will be borne by taxpayers.

Cap and trade, in some respects, is the companion measure to the Democrats’ health care grab. It finishes what government health care can’t finish: the effective takeover of the economy. Cap and trade is nothing more than an array of new confiscatory taxes (in the guise of consumer costs) and regulations aimed at radically changing consumer behavior and concentrating more economic and financial power in Washington. Cap and trade is guaranteed to add crippling costs to virtually everything produced in the United States. Business and industry may absorb some of the costs in an attempt to stay competitive, but by necessity the lion’s share of the burden will be passed on to consumers.

Americans, especially middle-income earners, are going to be socked by Mr. Obama’s Brave New Big Government, primarily in their paychecks. Less take-home pay for Americans is bound to hurt the businesses — mostly small — that are the lifeblood of communities, especially in middle- and working-class communities.

As we’ve seen in the Northeast and Midwest, government direction and spending is no substitute for people voluntarily spending their money in free exchanges that make communities vital. And as Arthur Laffer has amply demonstrated over the years, and as most everybody but liberals appreciate, high tax rates — and indirect taxes through government-imposed higher costs — don’t make for increased government revenues. Government simply isn’t going to have the revenues to soften its blows. And government can’t borrow forever, either.

What big government has done to the nation’s inner cities and poor blacks is nothing short of a moral crime. Unless the Democrats are stopped, a lesser though damaging crime will be committed against every other community. Ghetto-light may be your neighborhood all too soon.

J. Robert Smith is a contributor to American Thinker. He is a public affairs consultant with a practice in Alexandria, Virginia.

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1.
Aqua

Very well put, well-written article. The irrefutable obvious truth and a clear glance into the future if we continue down the path we are on.

Ordinary liberals, leftists, are in denial, willfully blind, and ignorant.

Obama and his increasingly larger inner and surrounding circle are not. They know exactly how devastating their plans will be.

Obama has openly admitted as much, prior to his election.

He and his cronies will profit in both wealth and power. They see a future of the middle classes and the poor blended into one group kept in control by themselves — as a ruling class.

November elections may be the last chance to begin to put a stop to them.

A very good point. Much conversation frames Obama’s plans as the Europeanization of the American economy.

But — Americans are not — definately not, Europeans. We are nothing like them.

It goes beyond the lack of quaint cafes and cobble-stoned streets, which can help keep an atmospheric gentility in Europe which we do not have here. European countries each have their own cultural glue — very old traditions, manners, history, food, etc. They are “relatives” in a way we are not.

Here, there are not only various races, but many cultures within our culture — and natural differences which will cause irritation in bad times, will no doubt be deliberately inflamed by political opportunists. We also have gangs and crime issues of all sorts which will increase and intensify as the economic situation worsens and there are fewer police.

Oh please don’t be so naive! Look at the “Poor Laws” Instituted in England during the 1780′s! And, we are Tenents of England, look for your STRAWMAN….Check youtube. Know the real facts about where Americans are really positioned. Rough translation, it could happen here.

State socialism is starting to come unglued in Europe and suddenly “respectable” continental pundits are talking sotto-voce about the unsustainability of the post-WWII model. However Euro-politicians know they are stuck with it and seem ready to ride it over the cliff while hoping, Micawber-like, that “something will turn up.” However none of this matters to American leftists because “the Vision” trumps everything else. Somewhere, just over the next hill, is the ideal society where all wealth is distributed evenly in ice-cube-tray like portions, all wants are instantly met by somebody else and all of us dance around the may-pole under the beaming gaze of an enlightened elite. They will NEVER give up on this even if our cities are reduced to flaming rubble and competing bands of armed scavengers going to war over the last can of Beefaroni. I would say it would make a great movie but its already been done to death.

The unraveling of the EU social fabric has begun, in Greece,
and will proceed across Europe to England, on its way here;
If the US cannot learn from the EU example, we will deserve
the dystopian future that the Progressives plan for us.

Successive local, county, state and national Republican and Democratic administrations have not been able to come up with any other viable alternative to eliminating poverty once and for all other than the “throw money at it” when it comes to dealing with the poor. However, at least some Democrats (and Republicans) have been more creative than others, specifically with the tax cuts and job training during the 60.s which statistically did quite well. You are correct in that sooner or later though, this “throwing money at it” policy, no matter how you do it, does not work forever. What is the answer in 2010? If you can find the answer then there is at least a million or so to be made in the book stores. Good article, thanks.

Exactly. We have tried taking people out of the ghetto through various welfare programs. What needs to happen is to take the ghetto out of the people. Essentially, we need to teach those who currently live on government handouts to stand on their own two feet. Government can help with this through better education, job training, etc, but I do not believe that this is possible through government alone. It will take religious and civic leaders within each community to change the hearts of the people, one at a time, with government standing aside in a support role. It will require each individual to decide for themselves that they don’t want to be a ward of the state. It will not be easy and the process will probably span multiple generations, but it will result in a community that is proud of themselves and what they have accompished.

It will also probably result in a large pool of more conservative voters, so the dems will never let it happen if they have any say.

J. Robert: You have a very clear understanding of the effects of social justice in America, as well as in Euprope. The image of decay is prominant in any area where government subsidies have taken over for free-market investment or re-investment.

There is something taken away from the spirit of a community and even more from the the people themselves, when no investment or effort is necessary from those living there.

The other side of the coin, of course, is the culture at large, which has already been “ghetto-fied” in middle- and working-class neighborhoods for several decades now (and even, to some degree, in wealthy areas, if you want to know the truth). Destruction and crippling of the economy is designed to make cultural renewal impossible. And, as you point out regarding the immigration issue, it’s all about votes.

But there aren’t going to be any votes left. The damage is done. It requires no further health-care bills or amnesties or any other disastrous programs to do it. The dangerous game the Democrats have played–and which the Republicans have more often than not been complicit in–has destroyed our society. It’s coming apart even as we speak.

You’ve nailed it precisely, the coffin lid is closed. But for those who still believe and hope, perhaps they could start a draft Dr. Victor Davis Hanson for President in 2012. Maybe he could take out the Messiah before the last dog is hung. It’s definitely 2012 or never, and John Goofy McCain and Fox News are not the answer.

I was asked by my impatient liberal friend, “So tell me, just what is so bad about European style socialism, it seems to me that it has done just what it proposed to do in leveling the playing field and creating greater social justice for all of it’s citizens. I have thoroughly enjoyed my many trips to Europe”.

To which I responded “Yes Europe is pretty sweet on the street. But you see the fundamental issue with E.U. socialism is that they aren’t done yet, they are still moving left, that is the problem with socialism, it always moves left and there is only one final destination and it is not pretty. I would think dictators, anarchists, revolutionaries and your run of the mill thug will eventually resolve the final days of this social experiment”, further I explained “Socialism in the US will bear little resemblance to the EU. It will be closer to a Venezuelan Socialism than France, Americans like myself, and there are still many like me, will ultimately have to be put down or broken as we are not the sheep of Canada or the EU. The US has been moving left for 100 years in inches and feet and I suspect the progressives will ultimately get there way, if they aren’t alreay there. When they are entrenched then come back and talk to me about social justice, that is if I’m still around to talk to”.

I have actually heard this from a number of people who have visited Europe, or likewise from Europeans who have only visited America. A collection of holidays is no way to base a judgement of how people live in a society. I have lived in several European countries over the past decade, and trust me, there are some stark differences when it comes to some areas of life. Hamburg, where I currently live, is a wonderful city to visit, and it is wonderful to live in if you are one the enfranchised. Once you have certain jobs, it can be nearly impossible to lose your position, even after gross negligence. This gives some people little impetus to perform their jobs as if their position was on the line, because it clearly isn’t. On the other side of the coin, these very same barriers that prevent some people from losing prevent some people from winning. The fact that employees may not be easily dismissed makes it much harder for the young and minorities to obtain those jobs. Often, what happens, is that after leaving university students must work for a nominal wage well below the cost of living for two or three years before they can find their first paying job. These “interns” do the same work as other people, they just are not payed for it. This is a necessary prerequisite to prove you are capable of your work, since once you have a non-intern position, you can not be fired due to your own incompetence. As a direct result, many Germans enter the workforce in their late twenties or early thirties, nearly a decade after their American counterparts. When I told some German friends that I knew Americans in their late twenties who owned their own home, they were gobsmacked.

Another example is the ability to start your own company. Entrepreneurialism provides wealth and job creation in the US, but largely doesn’t exist in Germany due to the many layers of red tape that exist. I, for example, have to pay my taxes in advance. That is, I have already payed the government for the taxes on the money that I hope to make in 2009. I payed that last year. I was also directly stopped from hiring employees, meaning my business is not able to grow naturally. That’s right. I was in the position to provide work for at least a couple more people, but the government would not let me. There are many societal implications for such statist intervention, and naturally, some people benefit and others do not. The people that benefit from huge barriers to business creation are people who already own businesses. In fact, their lobby is so strong in Germany that removing some of this red-tape will turn off major party donors. The obvious loser is to someone who wants to operate their own business but is not allowed to. Another obvious group of people who lose out are those who are not as skilled as some of their competitors in the job market. People with minimal skills in Germany have to rely on government hand-outs their entire life. Many of them choose to do so because they make more money that way. This creates a permanent underclass of citizens that typically suffer most from social problems such as domestic violence and alcoholism. Unfortunately, the children these people have often go directly from school to welfare because they know no other way of life. They are, as bad as it sounds, permanent wards of the state fed directly from my pockets.

European socialism is not all it’s cracked up to be. If your friend doesn’t buy my examples, then tell him what I always tell people now. It is a short, concise answer.

Thank you for sharing your experiences in Germany. I have seen similar things in France. I spent two years there a decade ago performing church service in which I interacted with local people every day. Most of these people were in the poor and middle class.

Let me first say that I love Europe and France in particular. The people are generally warm and friendly once you get to know them. I also love the architecture, the art, the food, the cobblestone streets and being surrounded by history. That said, I have to admit that most of what I love about Europe was created centuries ago under the watchful eye of monarchs. Once you stray beyond the tourist sites of any European city, it is obvious that their current social experiment is not working.

At the outskirts of every French city are huge government housing projects consisting of rows of ugly concrete apartment buildings, usually ten or more stories high. There is little grass in the courtyards. There are often burned-out cars in the parking lots. The tiny elevators wreak of urine, but every apartment has a satellite dish sticking out of one of the windows. Most of the inhabitants of these projects are unemployed. They receive government assistance which allows them to stay home and watch TV instead of going to work every day. Some are on permanent disability, although I never met anyone who was so disabled that they couldn’t get up, walk out the door and go to work if they actually needed to. Many have a hard time finding work because of their race or nationality. I have seen more racism in my limited time in France than I have seen over the course of the rest of my life in the US.

Even among those that work, there seems to be a quiet resignation that life is what it is, that there’s no use trying hard because things won’t get better. It’s best to just maintain the status quo. In one city I was told over and over again by people I met: “C’est triste ici,” “It’s sad here.”

It breaks my heart to think of these good people stripped of hope that they could ever have anything better. This is what the democrats want for us: a stable society resigned to accept whatever their masters give to them and nothing more.

version of the compassion that has blighted inner cities and utterly wasted the lives of many poor blacks

No, no, no …

Misguided “compassion’ , by whichever side of the political spectrum, does not force people to kill each other, drop out of school, sell drugs, or have children out of wedlock.

The blame belongs to those who engage in this behavior, not the welfare office. Life in the inner city won’t improve until there’s a sea change in the personal values of its residents. People have choices and they should be held responsible for those choices.

Yes, Yes, Yes – You miss the point. In order to create individuals who have the wherewithal to make solid “personal values” choices, you must encourage them to accept personal responsibility from the start. They then will go through the (sometimes painful, but necessary) process of learning that if you have no skill, or labor, or anything else to offer society, you will not get paid, and will not eat, live, etc… in comfort. Through the “misguided compassion” of a welfare state, all that is created is a class of individuals who get, and therefor expect, a minimum standard of living to be handed to them, regardless of what personal choices they make. This has the wonderful side effect of tacitly endorsing things like drug abuse, gang participation, broken families, sloth, alcohol abuse, and any number of other destructive behaviors that would otherwise be self limiting. After several generations of this, you now have an entire sub-culture that not only is incapable of making mature, rational decisions on a daily basis to insure the betterment of themselves and their families, they have no context in which to even begin to see where, why and how these decisions should be made, and that, in fact they lack these skills.

Exactly. I have always believed that rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Any system that tries to deliver rights without requiring responsibilities is doomed to failure.

Good article. I’ve been saying this is what they were up to for a long time. In the 1990′s one just had to look and see the social programs creeping up the income ladder and the industry fleeing overseas. This has only been picking up in the last decade. Amnesty and potentially granting Puerto Rico statehood will give the Dems a permanant lock on power.

I told people before the election that the Dems would crash this nation into the ground and would cheer all the while. They will gleefully crush America to rubble so long as they sit in the throne on top of the heap and will hold it forever. Power is their real goal and best way to preserve it is to make the maximum number of people dependant or postrate and destroying the economy and rule of law is the best way to do it.

““Socialism in the US will bear little resemblance to the EU. It will be closer to a Venezuelan Socialism than France…”- Commisar Larsky

We should BE so lucky!

My friends, what we are facing is Zimbabwefictaion…the resolute and undeniably destruction of a once-civilized and respectable nation into an economic and human basket-case by the policies of a leader and his cronies who are extolled as visionary and statesman-like by a toadying lap-dog press corps.

Without an Allende-type solution, (as in a broad and deep popular refutation against this agenda and those who hold it), we will be facing a Balkanization…in the bloodiest and most recent meaning of that term, followed by at least one secession.

Mr, Smith rightly points out:

“Americans share a common character but aren’t a common race, like the Germans or the French. Americans aren’t a postmodern people drawing to a genteel end. ”

And he’s right. What this means is that we will come apart at the already-existing seams.

You’ve hit on what I’m most afraid of too. When I first read Robert Heinlein’s ‘Friday’ when I was a teenager all the sexy stuff barely registered. What amazed me was the ‘Chicago Imperium’ and the ‘California Freestate’ and ‘Vicksburg Free City’ and all the other new nations where America and Canada once were. The claptrap about giant corporations nuking cities I found (and find) laughable, but balkanization isn’t out of the question. The reason the Left has been trying to get rid of guns is because balkanization will still be an option when they finally try to go for broke, and they want us helpless and captive slaves. Anyone who wants to have any rights when that happens had better get the heck out of the northeast and west coast, otherwise it’ll be ‘relaxation therapy center’ i.e. concentration camps for anyone who won’t knuckle under.

I’m not afraid of it because when the secessions come, they will be welcomed as the only logical and rational solutions to the failure of the runaway US Federal system.

It may not be a PRETTY lifeboat, but when your ship is sinking, it gets bee-yoo-tee-full but FAST.

Fact of the matter is that what passeth for our popular culture has been alienating and demonizing White male working class Christians generally, and Southern ones specifically, for about 50 years. From this viewpoint, secession has already happened, since the political is always a laggard to the cultural.

I don’t think that this state of affairs is going to reverse itself in time to avoid utterly alienating what, by Armed Forces enlistments, is the most culturally patriotic demographic in the USA…when the heart goes, what is left?

If you’ve been worried about this, then you likely also have realized that we have been set on a cultural course for national suicide.
My point is that if it’s going to happen, then let’s get all the drama over and done with so that we can set about to the rebirthing and building of the new Confederacy, and whatever other arrangements the rest may decide upon.

A truly compassionate society would do everything it could to produce self-reliant, autonomous individuals capable of contributing value, generating and managing personal wealth, and weathering the routine challenges of life. It would inculcate an understanding that sacrifice, hardship, even suffering and misfortune, are part of life and the struggle for meaningful achievement. It would start with the assumption that freedom and self-governance require more than showing up at the polls every few years or banging on our high chairs if, and only when, something affects us. It would not abdicate responsibility for the public square or truly needy to government programs which have as their primary objectives not care, but preservation and expansion.**

Instead, we get the deliberate enfeeblement of targeted political constituent groups, the promotion of an ever-growing victim and entitlement class, the subsidization of irresponsible behavior through mandated elimination of consequences and personal responsibility, and a decreasingly-aspirational education system for which we’ve paid hundreds of billions — all of it encouraged by a decadent entertainment establishment peddling ennui and cynicism.

When I return from traveling the more Hobbesian precincts of the world, I find the overwhelming majority of American ‘poor’ live better than 90% of the people on this planet and people with iPhones, extensive body art, exotic college degrees and pricey hipster clothing claiming they can’t afford health insurance.

We are no longer a serious people, and we have allowed ourselves to be rendered unserious.

**[But then, of course, people empowered to shape their own destinies, who are not easily victimized, would have little need for our so-called leadership class -- that collection of rent-seekers, grievance-huslters and control freaks who promise to outlaw whatever ails us and prey upon the public's growing tendency to petition authorities for intervention in more and more areas of their lives.]

For the last century the left has been slowly and surely expanding the size and intrusiveness of government. While the pace of this process slows and accelerates as control of the White House and Congress passes back and forth between political parties it never stops. This is the failure of the supposed conservative party; it never repeals any of the socialist policies or entities created by the left. On occasion genuine conservatives gain temporary stewardship of the country and achieve some small progress reducing the size of our government but the decreases are small and only temporary. As soon the left regains ascendancy the inexorable growth of the state and diminishment of our personal independence and liberty begins anew.
We have now entered a new and more dangerous phase of this process. The capture of the old Democratic Party by the radical Social Democrats is now complete. Their goal is not merely to create a European style Social Democracy here in America. The Social Democrats intend to create the socialist utopia that the European socialists have always aspired to but never achieved for various reasons. One of these reasons has always been the existence of an attractive viable alternative to socialism. That would be our Republic and our free market economy. Some say we are at a fork in the road or perhaps a crossroads. I submit that we are at THE fork in the road and time is short. If we do not expel these Progressivists from our body politic and keep them out forever starting in 2010 it may be too late. If freedom and democracy fails here it will ultimately fail everywhere.
When, how and where does Liberty meet its end? I don’t know when Liberty’s demise will be complete but I am sure that the process has indeed begun. When enough of the people have traded their personal independence for dependence on Government entitlements. When enough industries and businesses are either directly controlled by government or indirectly through mandates and regulation that the regime in power can determine what the consumers of goods and services are entitled to receive. When governments determine how much profit is socially acceptable as dictated by “Social Justice” and determines what part of the fruits of our labor we deserve to keep and how much is owed to the “Aggrieved Interest Classes”. When the government determines what portion of what ”haves” have is owed to the “have-nots” by virtue of their suffering under the oppressive heel of free market capitalism’s tyranny. What but oppression could explain why some are better off than others? When government declares it’s right, indeed it’s duty to redistribute the wealth in the name of “fairness” and social justice it is at that point that rights and liberties of the individual will be sacrificed for the good of the “Collective”, for there will be those selfish individuals who refuse to embrace the needs of the many. There will be some who cling to the archaic notion that we are endowed by our Creator not only with unalienable rights but with free will and ambition to spur us to excel in our attempts to improve our material and spiritual condition. As the Social Democrat’s redistributive programs fail, as they must due to rising costs and falling revenues as more and more people are supported by fewer and fewer productive citizens the state must become more intrusive in the economic, and increasingly the social life of all citizens. The freedoms we take for granted will be deemed by the state to be socially divisive luxuries that have outlived their usefulness and are best discarded in the interest of societal cohesion. At some point we will be told by the state to shut up or else. When only some few brave souls refuse to be silent, then Liberty meets it’s end, hands bound… blindfolded in front of Adobe Walls.

Thank you for this well written article. I will share it along. I am posting this to encourange anyone that does not want to see this continued decline in our America to warch this link and more on the subject of how Iceland the only Other Constitutional Republic, fixed their gigantic mess and we can also if we really want to. It would work. Here you go.
The man who changed Iceland – the message for Greece.